Cordelia il Fal DeVries
Cordelia is an OC, from a world with a society somewhat similar to medieval europe - ye olde fantasy setting, so to speak. She's a princess from that world, in her twenties. She is generally friendly and polite, but there is a kind of curse on her... HISTORY Early Life Cordelia was the firstborn child of the royal family ruling a moderately sized kingdom. The dynasty had ruled the kingdom for the last two hundred years, after taking out competing noble families in a decade-spanning war, but these days, the country enjoyed a mostly peaceful prosperity (as long as you ignored the occasional peasant uprisings that were usually cut down swiftly and brutally). As the girl had displayed some magical talent, she was raised as a pillar (a kind of mage specializing in supportive magic), for her magical talent made it unlikely that she would find a husband, and thus made her useless for marital politics. Magic was, after all, accepted, but still distrusted. Cordelia was an obedient child, who did her duties as best as she could, and believed what she was taught. She believed that her family was acting in the best interest of the kingdom, and that thus she should give her all to support said kingdom. Trouble brewing Near her 19th birthday, things stopped being peaceful. Another rebellion happened, which was not unusual in itself, but this one had more support, including that from citizens of several cities that had prospered with trade and were demanding rights, and also several hedge mages, who practiced illegal, self-taught magic. The kingdom raised an army, and went to crush the rebellion, as they had done before. And as they routed the peasant army, and went to cut down the escaping enemies, a circle of desperate hedge mages tried to summon something from beyond to somehow turn the tide of battle. Unfortunately for everyone involved, they succeeded, summoning a part of the Teeming, a quasidemonic manifestation of chaos (called The Teeming because, well, it was basically a teeming mass of tentacles, mouth, eyes, and worse). The creature, an eldritch horror more than a mere demon, laid waste to both sides, killing some, and turning others into gross monstrosities, and then proceeded to randomly move through the countryside, leaving behind changed vegetation and abnormal creatures. For it was chaos – but also life. Just an ever-changing source of life both alien and incomprehensible, anathema to the current life it encountered. Needless to say, countless heroes tried to best this creature, and died trying (if they were lucky). As the chaotic manifestation turned towards the capital of the kingdom, a second army was raised, although the nobles knew very well that the chances of anyone surviving the encounter were slim, that the attack was a suicide mission. Many soldiers deserted outright, as did officers and, most importantly, mages. Among those that did not flee were poor fools like Cordelia, who had heroic ideals, and believed they had a duty to their country. As many nobles fled the city, the second army encountered the creature. It was pretty much a slaughter. The soldiers were only there to act as a meat-shield for the mages, and consequently died in droves. Many killed by the mages they protected, as the Teeming invaded their minds and drove them mad. But still, the humans were many, and eventually, a particularly desperate mage burned himself out, killing both the chaotic manifestation as well as himself. Cursed and hunted At this point, not even four score humans were still alive (or rather in a state that a human would consider alive), including Cordelia and two other mages. But the creature was not done. As it perished, it bestowed a parting gift on the survivors - most likely not because it acknowledged their efforts, but because it appreciated irony. This gift was infusing the survivors with a sliver of its own nature, killing the non-mages outright and changing the mages. Their original magical abilities were gone, their reservoir of magic replaced by chaotic energies that even affected their bodies. Any other mage that would examine them would be repulsed, considering them demonically tainted. They couldn’t even hide this: Vegetation around them was also affected by the chaotic energy, making plants grow faster…and also changing on a genetic level. Small animals would flee the survivors. And there were visible signs too, hair and skin had been bleached to a kind of grayish hue, and the eyes had been turned red. That was the irony of the “gift” – it turned the three surviving mages into pariahs. Other mages would figure them to be servants of a chaotic, demonic creature, and would attempt to kill them on sight. Cordelia went from a princess to a fugitive, never able to stay in a place for long, always sticking to the fringes of society. She learned more about her fellow humans in the next months than she had in all her nineteen years. She learned by experience how quick people she helped were to betray her if they learned about the (large) bounty that was now on her head, she learned how quick a family could be at discarding one of their own. She learned of the deaths of her two fellow “gifted” mages, one having been captured, the other going mad. Still, she clung to her ideals, and tried to, somehow, avoiding turning bitter and misanthropic. Even if it was a thankless task, she could still use her abilities to help her kingdom…somehow… Present Day It wasn’t meant to be, as at around this point, she disappeared from her world. Which, all things considered, was probably a mercy. Personality Her defining trait is, most definitely, responsibility, even if it costs her. An example of this trait, her sense of duty, is when she went with the second army, while others in her position fled. As a princess, she could easily have fled and let others go in her place, but she chose not to. She keeps promises to the best of her abilities, again even when it costs her. She has learned of the conflict between ‘helping people’ and ‘helping the country’ (which is really a conflict of who the duty is owed to – do you protect the country as-is, by killing the rebelling peasants, or do you improve the conditions of the peasants?), and while this still gives her trouble, after her experiences, she tends to lean to help individual people over “the country”, having learned firsthand how quick a country is at dropping even those that helped the country just a short time ago. Despite her bad experiences with humans as a whole, she tries to keep a positive outlook, and still genuinely tries to help others, particularly those already disenfranchised. She might have looked down on them in her earlier years, but she learned the hard way that between the “rabble” and the nobility, the difference mostly is table manners – if even that. The reason she does push herself to do “good” – despite having a lot of bad experiences with humans as a whole – is guilt. She feels deep guilt for several things. Not convincing her father to send more people (and maybe come along himself, doing a rousing speech, or stuff like that you usually see in stories). Having survived, while so many people did not. Having killed people that tried to kill her for the bounty. She even feels guilt for not turning herself in and getting executed, for a part of her kept telling her that, too, was her duty. She also now understands that the whole conflict would have been easily avoidable – had one simply done a few easy, simple reforms to keep the peasants from starving (after all, that was the only reason they rebelled in the first place). She could have seen that, but as a noble had simply not bothered to. Therefore, she also feels guilt for that – of course knowing that she had had little power, but maybe she could have done something, or so she thinks. Consequently, guilt is also one of the few things that can make her truly angry – especially if she is accused of doing something that she didn’t do. Of course, this will only make her look more guilty. Due to her bad experiences, she tends to approach other people politely, but remains somewhat distant, not trusting them that easily even if she genuinely wants to. She tries to keep her abilities hidden as well, if possible, because she knows that many of them are…not pleasing to the eye. This is a problem for her because another deep motivation for her is fighting her loneliness. Having friends. Her nature made this nearly impossible in her own world, but it was still something she wished for. She would often try to befriend someone – just for them to eventually learn of her nature (or the bounty) and betray her. This desperate wish to be close to people makes her more likely to forgive transgressions if she believes this will help mend the relationship to a person, but consequently, this is one thing she could be manipulated by. Of course, she does try to avoid openly showing that she really, well, just wants to be friends. To people she is closer to, she tries to behave how she believes friends act, with casual joking and the like, but since she never had many friends to begin with, this often gets a bit awkward. Abilities Her main ability is the benison of The Teeming, which has various applications. Mainly, this fills her with chaotic life force. This can be used in a number of ways, and also has a few side effects: She can rapidly increase the growth of plants even out of season, quickly increasing their size by imbuing them with chaotic life force. However, this changes the plant randomly. It might acquire thorns, a bad taste, a different color, blossoms, or something completely different. This effect happens to all plants around her even if she does not will it to, although at a slower rate. It’s pretty noticeable where she slept if she slept in a meadow. She can, with active concentration, suppress this on a few flowers – but not more than five, the others will keep growing. Regeneration: Wounds do close significantly faster (in fact, you can see them closing), but this still is not instant. It simply makes her a lot harder to kill than a normal human. She can mutate her own body, modifying it (although only in somewhat monstrous ways, like turning her hand into a claw), growing additional limbs, or even essentially “monstering out” like a generic RPG boss, so to speak. The later tends to increase her size at least several times (although her main body remains, what increases the size are massive growths of which her real body then is merely a segment of), and provides her with various additional appendages including claws, tentacles, pincers, and the like. Her regeneration is boosted, but she tends to lose control in this “form”, having a hard time not attacking allies or even friends outright. All such modifications, even minor ones, are also VERY unsettling to look at, and have a tendency to move in ways they shouldn’t possibly be able to (for example two tentacles moving through each other, while remaining perfectly tangible) The laws of physics can be temporarily sidestepped. This essentially allows her to treat her surroundings like an Escher painting – walking up a wall as if it were ground, for example, or pushing a block according to non-Euclidean geometry. This is usually much less useful than, say, flight, but probably can offer somewhat unique solutions in some puzzle rooms. She can, however, not extent this to other people unless she carries them while doing so. It goes without saying that this is also unsettling to look at, bordering on nauseating, and a truly stomach churning experience if one actually is carried by her. Magical “Scans”, aura readings, or the like of her show nothing but random, slithering, hungry chaos. Someone analyzing her this way likely will consider her to be a danger due to this (if not an evil that they believe needs to be destroyed immediately). Analyzing her like that is, in fact, dangerous to the mind and can cause seizures, headaches, or worse. Which in turn can be percieved as an attack by the analyzing mage, making things worse for the ex-princess. Character Relations ! Category:characters